Editorial

A Glimpse of Swami Brahmananda

SWAMI KAILASANANDA

This month we are celebrating the Janma Tithi Puja of Swami Brahmananda, the first President of the Ramakrishna Order. We are presenting from our archive, the Editorial of Feb 1949 which gives an excellent introduction to this special disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. The author is Swami Kailasananda, the then head of Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai, who later became one of the Vice-Presidents of the Ramakrishna Order.

People wondered: who might be this stately young man in saffron standing at the palace-gate with a garland in his hands? Presently there arose a tumultuous uproar, ‘Victory to Sri Ramakrishna!, Victory to Swami Vivekananda!’ With green laurels on his forehead the victor had just returned to his home-city Calcutta. The seething crowd ran mad in trying to snatch a glimpse of that wonderful man, Vivekananda. The decorated coach stopped at the gate. Extricating himself somehow from the heap of flowers and garlands under which he was almost buried, Swami Vivekananda alighted from the coach. The first thing he did after being garlanded by the young man at the gate was to prostrate himself at his feet with the words, “Unto the son of the Guru as to the Guru!” In his turn the young man prostrated himself at the feet of Vivekananda with the words, “Unto the elder brother as to the Father!” People wondered the more; who could be this young man at whose feet the great Swami Vivekananda, at whose feet millions bow wherever he goes, prostrates? This was Swami Brahmananda, popularly known as ‘Maharaj’ in the Ramakrishna Order.

We shall understand the profound significance of this piece of Swami Vivekananda’s behaviour, as we go back to the idyllic days of Sri Ramakrishna’s spiritual ministrations at Dakshineswar. “...no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and he to whom the Son will reveal him.”

Sri Ramakrishna had finished the sadhana period of his life. The Divine Mother had asked him to remain in Bhava-mukha, on the borderline of the Absolute and the Relative with free access to both, for the good of the world. But how was he to do that? The mind had become so vertical in its tendency! There was nothing

on the earthy plane of this earth on which his mind, so rarefied that it had become, could rivet. He felt a tremendous loneliness, a loneliness which the Absolute alone perhaps feels! Not that people did not come to him. They came. They came in numbers. But mostly of the sort stinking in gross worldliness. In that state of his being so ethereal in texture, it was an acute suffering for him to bring himself to mix and talk with people, antipodal in disposition. So he supplicated to the Divine Mother, “Mother my tongue is burnt because of talking to worldly people.” “Be not afraid, my child, devotees of pure heart and full of the spirit of renunciation will be soon coming”, assured the Mother. But Sri Ramakrishna was impatient. He importuned again, “Mother, get me a companion—like unto me. Mother, I have not to have a son but I wish I had a pure-souled devoted boy always with me as a companion. Get me a son like this.”

Coming of the scion of the Divine

Shortly after this Sri Ramakrishna saw in a trance a little boy standing under the banyan tree. He wondered, what might be the significance of it? Again, to quote Sri Ramakrishna’s own words, “A few days before Rakhal came to me, Mother placed a little boy on my lap and said, ‘This is your son.’ At first I was startled. ‘My son?’ Mother smiled at this and made me understand that I was not to have a son in the ordinary sense, but that this boy would be my spiritual son who would live up to the highest ideals of renunciation. While eagerly awaiting the advent of his spiritual son, one day Sri Ramakrishna had another wonderful vision. Suddenly he saw a hundredpetalled lotus blossoming on the waters of the Ganga, each of the petals of the lotus shining in exquisite loveliness. On the lotus two boys were dancing with tinkling anklets tied to their feet. One of them was the ever young Sri Krishna himself; the other was the same boy whom he had seen in his previous visions.1 This divine dance of theirs was indescribably beautiful; every movement they made seemed to splash foam, as it were, in the ocean of sweetness. As one can only expect, Sri Ramakrishna was lost in ecstasy. Just at that moment a boat anchored on the bank of the Ganga and from therein emerged Rakhal—Sri Ramakrishna’s spiritual son. This was the coming of the Scion of the Divine by the currents of the Holy Waters to join the Father at the Divine play which he had convoked on the threshold of humanity.

With the coming of Rakhal one of the sweetest chapters of Sri Ramakrishna’s life opened. Rakhal did not come to Sri Ramakrishna as a disciple comes to his guru सतमतपातणरः, but as a long-awaited only little child to its mother. Viewing Rakhal with eyes soaked with affection, Sri Ramakrishna would be transported into the disposition of Mother Yasoda. He would feed him, fondle him and play with him just as parents do with their children. Sometimes holding him on his shoulders Sri Ramakrishna would dance. Rakhal too reciprocated the exact feelings of a little baby. He would sometimes come running and jump into the lap of Sri Ramakrishna.

It is very difficult to explain what made Sri Ramakrishna who was established in the highest Advaitic realisations and would times without number pass into samadhi, become so motherly in his disposition to Rakhal, who again, in his turn would become so baby-like though by the time he came to Sri Ramakrishna he was a muscular young athlete and a married man withal. But the truth of this relationship made Rakhal one of the sweetest personalities that ever walked on the surface of this earth. He is the sweetest facet of Ramakrishnaincarnation. Through him Sri Ramakrishna touches the feverish forehead of humanity like

the fragrance of a flower in benign gentleness, and soothing sweetness. This sweetness in its fullness found expression in his character in the form of deep silence and perfect calmness.

“The one characteristic of Indian thought” said Swami Vivekananda, “is its silence, its calmness. At the same time the tremendous power that is behind it is never expressed by violence. It is always the silent mesmerism of Indian thought... And whoever had dared to touch our literature had felt the bondage, and is there bound for ever.

“Like the gentle dew that falls unseen and unheard, and yet brings into blossom the fairest of roses, has been the contribution of India to the thought of the world. Silent, unperceived, yet omnipotent in its effect, it has revolutionised the thought of the world, yet nobody knows when it did so.”

Swami Brahmananda was the very personification of this characteristic of Indian thought, so much so, that he is very little known even in India, outside the orbit of the influence of Ramakrishna Mission. Perhaps his name will not be mentioned in the official annals of Indian history as one of the greatest men that India ever produced. But all the same the services of the ‘gentle dew’ is there, one knows it or not, behind the proud magnificence of ‘the fairest of the roses.’

Flames that made him golden

As far as spiritual practices were concerned, Sri Ramakrishna was always the hardest possible task-master. It was but natural

(From left) Swamis Trigunatitananda, Shivananda, Vivekananda, Turiyananda, Brahmananda and (seated below) Sadananda

that the father should have been only anxious to hand down all the secrets of his pursuit and the techniques of his art to one who was destined to go forth in the world, largely written on his forehead — Spiritual Son of Sri Ramakrishna. The result was that Rakhal had to practise various modes of sadhana under the watching eyes of Sri Ramakrishna. The realisations that were to be achieved through spiritual practices-cum-God’s grace all came to him as naturally, providentially and lawfully as a patrimony descends to a son. But as a cautious son that he was and fully loyal son too, the severely austere sadhanas that he practised during the years 1886 to 1897 after the passing away of Sri Ramakrishna in different parts of India staggers a listener. One of his brotherdisciples actually asked him, “Why do you live so strictly? You are the spiritual son of God Incarnate? He has already done everything for you. Through his grace you have attained samadhi. Then why do you still have to sit like a beggar, begging for Lord’s grace?”

“What you say is true,” Maharaj answered. “The Master did do everything for us. But still I find a lack within. This proves that we need repeated practice in order to make the state of samadhi natural and habitual to us. You know Uddhava was a devoted disciple and friend of Sri Krishna; through His grace he realised God. And yet Sri Krishna sent him to the Himalayas to live in solitude and contemplation.”

Vijay Krishna Goswami, the well-known saint, also asked Maharaj the same question. He replied simply, “I am only trying to become established in that vision of God which I received through my Master’s grace.” And he did become established in the vision of God so much so that in his after-life volleyed by the biting questions of a doubting disciple he could say, “I do not move or do anything until I know the will of the Lord...Yes, I wait until I know His will directly and He tells me what I should do... Yes, for everything I do have the direct guidance of God.”

“Raja is the greatest treasure-house of spirituality”, said Swami Vivekananda. Once a European devotee came to visit him in the monastery, wishing to have his spiritual problems solved. Swamiji sent him to Maharaj, saying, “There you will find a dynamo working and we are all under him.” This reveals Swamiji’s own greatness but none the less it shows Maharaj also in true perspective.

Aunt Bhanu was a devotee of Sri Ramakrishna and a highly advanced sadhika. Her’s was the attitude of the Gopi. Once she sang a song regarding Sri Krishna before Maharaj which moved him so much that he went into ecstasy. Torrents of tears soaked his garments absolutely. At this the Holy Mother remarked, “Bhani, one must admit that you are not an ordinary being—you have been successful in ruffling even Rakhal, who is nothing if not a mighty ocean.”

The triple strands

In the three visions which Sri Ramakrishna had seen concerning Rakhal before his coming are embedded the three main strands which formed the mystic texture of the sweet, lofty, vast and possessing personality that was Swami Brahmananda’s. Even India, which is so prolific in producing sages, has rarely produced a sage of this type. As we explore deeper into the character of Maharaj, we shall find that it was mostly the sovereign blend of these three golden strands that gave the uniqueness of this magnificent personality.

The first was the childlikeness of his disposition. ‘Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” The ‘conversion’ of Maharaj was absolute in this sense and so he

was truly heavenly. This was the secret how he was able to enter the very sanctuary of Sri Ramakrishna’s heart so playfully and could enthrone himself there as his beloved darling.

His naive simplicity was so surprisingly consequential that one day Sri Ramakrishna wept bitterly saying, “Ah me you are so simple. Who will look after you when I am gone!” By allowing ourselves to be en rapport with the profound pathos of these tearful words of Sri Ramakrishna, we may aspire to have a glimpse of the nature of that simplicity which was the very breath of Rakhal’s personality. Even when he grew grey, had disciples and devotees by the legion, was the venerated President of the Ramakrishna Order, he retained the same fresh elemental childlikeness in him. His body suffered change. But he did not change. For he was one of those who are not fashioned by the world but fashion the world. When he would be in the presence of the Holy Mother, he would even at the age of fifty sometimes dance innocently while clapping his hands just like any unreasonable little baby. It is however to be remembered that behind this simplicity was always awake that supreme intelligence about which Sri Ramakrishna remarked,”Rakhal possesses kingly intelligence and he can rule an empire.”

The second and the most important strand of Rakhal’s personality was his Sonship of the Divine. The Divine Mother had told Sri Ramakrishna that Rakhal was his spiritual son who would live upto the highest ideals of renunciation. Sri Ramakrishna himself not only accepted Rakhal as his spiritual son but also gave him to the world with the same designation appended to him. We do not pretend to say that we understand all what this Sonship of the Divine means. There is perhaps only another example in the religious history of the world where Sonship of the Divine is presented before man. Jesus claimed Sonship of God-head and assured that, ‘I and my Father are one’. Whatever may be the metaphysical explanations and implications of this, for all practical purposes we find that through the instrument of this Sonship the Divine descends to man in large sweetness and effective intimacy and becomes a connecting link, as it were, with all that is furthest removed from the Divine. Jesus asserted that he was the representative of the Most High and so had the power-of-attorney to administer His Father’s wishes unto humanity and to mediate and supplicate before the Father on behalf of humanity. The son is only the modification of the Father, a projection of the same entity.

This Sonship of the Divine gave Swami Brahmananda a unique prestige and privilege among his brother-disciples. In this one respect he stands always on a higher level (not to be confused with any misunderstood hierarchy) than all his brother-disciples not excluding even Swami Vivekananda. All of them cherished the profoundest reverence for him. Every one of them knew that Sonship of the Divine, unlike earthly sonship, is always more and greater than the discipleship of the Divine. ‘I and my Father are one’ but not the disciple and his guru.

How his brother-disciples used to look upon their Raja is patent in the following incidents. “I am astonished seeing the work of Raja”, said Swamiji once to Girish Ghosh.2 “How beautifully he is guiding the work of the Math and Mission! One has to admire the royal intelligence of Raja. The Master used to say, ‘Rakhal possesses kingly intelligence and he can rule an empire.’ Exactly so.” “Why not? The Son that he is of His!”, replied Girish. Hearing this, almost melting in joy, said Swamiji, “Immeasurable is Raja’s spirituality. Could anyone be comparable to him whom the Master

used to take on his lap as his son, used to feed in great fondness and lull him to sleep on his own bed. He is incomparable. Raja is the very life of our Math—he is our King!”

After the consecration of the Belur Math on 2 January 1899, one day Swamiji ceremonially fed Maharaj with sodasopachara (sixteen items) and then standing before him with folded hands said, “Raja! it is only he (meaning Sri Ramakrishna) who knew your value—what do we know that we could value you?”

When Swami Prabhavananda, one of the disciples of Maharaj was about to leave India for taking up his duty in U. S. A., Swami Shivananda blessed him with the words, “Never forget that you have seen the Son of God. You have seen God.”

The Holy Mother once presented clothes to her renouncing children (the direct-disciples of Sri Ramakrishna). Everyone was presented with a cotton-cloth whereas Maharaj was given a silken one. One, whose sense of democracy was perhaps a little disturbed by this discrimination of the Holy Mother, ventured the question, “Mother, everyone is your child, then why this silken cloth to Rakhal Maharaj?” Replied the Mother instantly, “Don’t you know, Rakhal is the Son?” The Holy Mother was the affectionate mother of all the disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. Yet this little discrimination she kept up regarding the ‘spiritual son’.

With this Sonship of the Divine was associated the idea ‘who would live up to the highest ideals of renunciation’ as we have seen in the second vision of Sri Ramakrishna regarding Rakhal. In point of renunciation Maharaj very naturally reminds one of the Prince of Kapilavastu. Like the latter the former too was to be the inheritor of the vast properties of his father, had a youthful wife and a child. When the call of the Divine came he renounced them as easily as the Sakya Prince did. When Sri Ramakrishna said, “Rakhal was born with very intense love for God”, he revealed the depth of Rakhal’s spirit of renunciation, for, such love for God could be only the resultant of such a spirit.

About the sweetness of his deportment, as deduced from the third vision which forms the third strand of his personality, we have referred to previously. This made of him a centre of tremendous attraction. Wherever he went he brought with him peace, music, joy, solace and silent inspiration. In his presence life received a fresh cadence, God became the only reality of life and the daily problems most unreal

Swami Brahmananda

phantoms. One of his disciples vouches that even his hands and feet had a peculiar charm and attraction about them, perhaps because one who would fall at those feet was sure to be saved, and one who was to be touched by those hands was sure to conquer. It is perhaps not even a half-truth to say that ‘Our sweetest songs are those that tell us of saddest thoughts.’ Why, there was no sadness about Maharaja’s sweetness. It was only joy become humble, anandam become inoffensive and mellow. It was the life-expression of the Incomprehensible. God is nothing if not also sweet रसो ्वै सहरः। True, we have also our God, the terrible, Kali, the Mother. But have we not at another point our Krishna, the sweet, the beautiful? Maharaj’s sweetness gave all a profound sense of security in life and death. It is impossible to remember Maharaj and to be afraid of anything.

These three main strands of character as seen above nourished under the ever-watchful care of Sri Ramakrishna, formed the basis of Maharaj’s lofty personality. After the passing away of Sri Ramakrishna, specially during the time when Swami Vivekananda was delivering his message in the West, Maharaj was constantly engaged in very severe sadhanas in various parts of India. Burnt in the flames of these tremendous austerities, rich with the highest treasures of spirituality, Swami Brahmananda had emerged like the Golden Purusha at the threshold of humanity by the time Swami Vivekananda returned from the West. Before he came to take up active work as the Head of the Ramakrishna Order at the behest of Swami Vivekananda, he could say, “The spiritual life begins after the attainment of Nirvikalpa Samadhi.”

So widely unlike: So intensely akin

The personality of Brahmananda is best revealed when seen against the personality of Vivekananda. The natures of the two brotherdisciples were widely dissimilar, and yet, in a sense, complementary. In the words of Sri Ramakrishna, “Naren dwells in the realm of the absolute, the impersonal. He is like a sharp drawn sword of discrimination. Rakhal dwells in the realm of God, the Sweet One, the repository of all blessed qualities. He is like a child on the lap of his mother, completely surrendering himself to her in every way.”

Swamiji was inflamed like an animated lion, boundless and fathomless like an ocean, a vast reservoir of jnana, vairagya, vidya and buddhi, ever-wavy with stormy upsurge of deluging youth-force. Maharaj was like the immeasurable sky, serene, tranquil, imperturbable, infinitely ecstatic, mellow and sweet with childlike softness. One was the burning mid-day sun of terrific spiritual energy, the other was the limpid and cool effulgence, of the light within. The message of one is but galvanizing electricity, of the other a subterranean flow of ambrosial Mandakini. One was ‘an Orator by Divine right’; the other was a man of supreme silence by Divine right. Vivekananda almost cruelly tears you away from the moorings of your degrading complacence and giving you a portion of his own dynamism sets you alone on the rough road of perpetual quest to find the truth all by your own toil; whereas Brahmananda weans you out for almost a pleasant walk, himself eager to walk with you the entire path tirelessly, sometimes giving you a joke to cope with and at other times pointing out a pitfall on the way and always inspiring you to go ahead. One was to work-out the world-mission from many to one, the other the same mission from one to many. The one was, so to say, the centripetal force, the other was the centrifugal force, as it were. So the path of the one, one might say, lay across the path of the other on

which they met at every immediate point throughout the whole distance and revealed each other against themselves — for while the circumference is the consummation of the lifeprinciple of the centre, the centre is the self-realisation of the circumference.

These two vast men so different outwardly were at heart but one. They were like two flowers of different hue and odour on the same petiole. They used to hold each other in invulnerable faith, boundless love and fathomless sraddha. Sri Ramakrishna and his mission were their life and soul and all.

Uttara-sadhaka: The divine mason

Swami Brahmananda is the first among those who understood Vivekananda with all his revolutionary ideas through and through and never for a moment doubted or questioned his mission. He could very easily traverse the vast sweep of Vivekananda’s epic imagination and was always at home with any of his new ideas. The points of stresses and the programme of work which Vivekananda brought with him received unanimous assent and support from Brahmananda. He could at once see the infallibility of Swamiji’s approach and always stood behind him as a silent Himalayas of strength.

Just after his return to Calcutta, Swamiji placed in Maharaj’s hand all the money which the American devotees had subscribed towards the Indian Mission. “All this time,” he said, “I have been acting as a trustee. It is a relief to give this back to its real owner—our Raja.” After delivering his message and handing over the funds Vivekananda felt himself free, for he knew that it was now Raja’s part to play. The plan once given, this divine mason began his work silently and with unerring precision, and even before the passing away of Vivekananda in 1902 gave him the supreme and perfect satisfaction of understanding that his work had fallen on the shoulders of an equal uttarasadhaka.

Brahmananda did his great work in profound silence and with perfect ease. He made gold out of dust and angels out of worms. He did not deliver lectures. He simply lived ‘gazing in the Infinite’, as a conduit of the Divine. When tempests of work, cyclones of service stormed the seats of meditation, with silent power he held all fast to the feet of the Lord. The destination was always before his open eyes. He held the helm always firmly and was never daunted by any bad weather. Forsooth, during the fiercest of storms he sang most sweetly for on that plea the Lord came the nearest to him even though He was always nearer than the nearest.

As the Head of the Order he impressed indelibly upon the minds of the inmates the truth, “The success of a religious body depends, not on its external achievements, its efficient organisation, its buildings, the size of its membership or its philanthropic activities — but upon the inner life of each of its members and measure of their progress towards devotion and knowledge of God.”

The portrait we have essayed to reveal here is of the very heart of the Ramakrishna Order. The heart can never be fully revealed, for it is the very seat of the Inscrutable. Therefore, we could have but given an imperfect glimpse alone.

References

1) This vision led the Master to identify Rakhal as one of those pure souls who had been incarnated as playmates of Sri Krishna. 2) “Swamiji” always refers to Swami Vivekananda in the pale of the Ramakrishna Order,

Reminiscences of Sargachhi

SWAMI SUHITANANDA (Continued from previous issue. . .) Swami Premeshananda (1884 – 1967) was a disciple of Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi. For over two decades he lived at Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama, Sargachhi, West Bengal. Under his inspiration countless people led a life of spirituality and service, and many young men and women entered into monastic life. His conversations – translated from Bengali and presented below – were noted by his attendant who is now Srimat Swami Suhitananda Ji, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Ramakrishna Order. 57

3.2.61 (continued…)

Maharaj: Sri Ramakrishna is the Lord of the present age. Each of his instructions has to be obeyed verbatim – otherwise we will have to face great danger. In the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna says –अथ तितिं समािातुं न शकनोतष मत्य मसथरम्। अभ्यास्योगेन ततो मातमचछाप िनञ्ज्य।। अभ्यासेऽप्यसमथथोऽतस मतकम्बपरमो भ्व। मदथ्बमतप कमा्बतण कफु्व्बन् तसतद्म्वापस्यतस।। अथैतदप्यशतिोऽतस कतुथं मद्योगमातश्रतरः। स्व्बकम्ब्लत्यागं ततरः करु ्यतातम्वान्।।

(Gita. 12: 9-11) The Lord doesn’t allow us to go astray under any circumstances. He says: Worship Me through the yoga of practice. If you are not able to do that, if you feel an urge to do work, then take to doing good work, such as grazing cattle at the command of the guru. If you cannot do even that, then whatever you do, be it good or bad, offer its result to God. If you practise like this, you will rise gradually. The crux of the matter is, wherever you are, start rising from right there. Whether you are good or bad, you have to be up and doing. It won’t do to sit idly. Get started right now. Suren Babu [a householder devotee of Sri Ramakrishna] is unable to give up drinking. So, Sri Ramakrishna says, “All right, drink after offering it to the Divine Mother.” Let him drink! But how long can he drink? As he continues to remember God, he will develop a taste in that direction and automatically he will have the bliss of devotion.

Question: What is devotion?

Maharaj: Devotion is not something external to human beings — it is the first and primal instinct of man. The child first learns to be devoted to its mother. Lying in her lap, it learns to feel oneness with her. This instinct is found even among birds and animals. If this tendency can be sublimated and turned towards God, then that is called devotion.

Men generally have a liking for women. That is how worship of the women in various forms — the left-handed practice, or worship in accordance with the Tantras, or the cult of worshipping using human skulls, or worship of the goddess in young girls (vaamachar, tantrika, kapaalika, kishori-bhajana) — originated. The householder is instructed to continue conjugal intimacy, but for seven days he has to regard his wife as a goddess. In this way, physical relationship is sublimated into the worship of God.

One day Swamiji [as young Narendranath] railed vehemently against such practices. Then